SUMMER 2025 Editorial

IT IS MY pleasure to present the Summer 2025 issue featuring seven impressive articles on “Chinese Export Art at the Fitzwilliam Museum”. The art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, the Fitzwilliam Museum houses a significant collection of Chinese export paintings, mainly dating to the late 18th and the 19th century. As part of the “Chinese Export Art: The Thirteen Hongs Project”, many of these works have recently been researched and catalogued. The articles published in this issue explore how Qing officials used arts and crafts to project the country’s identity to the outside world, and how export objects drew upon both Chinese and European visual traditions.

Dr James C.S. Lin, Senior Curator of Chinese Art, Fitzwilliam Museum, stated: “We are most grateful for the partnership with Guangzhou University and the philanthropic support of Mr Wang Heng through Ms Li Li (previous director of the Thirteen Hongs Museum, Guangzhou), which has enabled us to undertake this pilot project around the Fitzwilliam Museum’s important collection of Chinese export artworks from the Thirteen Hongs.”

This issue also includes interesting articles on “Canton and the Import of European Luxury Goods in the 18th Century”, Chinese archaic figural and ornamental jades ranging in date from the Neolithic period to the Han dynasty assembled by Ai Weiwei, the renowned artist, “Chinese Earthenwares from the Neolithic Period to the Tang Dynasty in the Shangyatang Collection” and the Bowers Museum’s spectacular exhibition, “World of the Terracotta Warriors: New Archaeological Discoveries in Shaanxi in the 21st Century”. We have a review of Kindred Spirits: 100 Japanese Ceramics in Chinese Style, The Shen Zhai Collection, plus an interview with David Halperin, whose impressive collection of lacquerware from Burma (Myanmar), Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, assembled over more than forty years, was recently published in an elegant volume.

Accompanying me at Asia Week New York 2025 was Paul Bromberg, a contributing editor to Arts of Asia. The week launched with gallery open houses and the annual reception at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met), which welcomed 600 collectors, dealers, curators, auction house experts, museum patrons and Asian art enthusiasts.

One of my personal highlights of the week was the Study Day organised by The Met in conjunction with the exhibition, “The Three Perfections: Japanese Poetry, Calligraphy, and Painting from the Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection”, on view at The Met until August 3rd, 2025. The Study Day was held in the Sacerdote Lecture Hall and Arts of Japan Galleries on a day when the museum was closed to the public. This was an engrossing gathering of Japanese art specialists and students, who were able to listen to interesting and informative presentations and engage in conversations around the works on display. Everyone at the Study Day was presented with a copy of the Arts of Asia Spring 2025 issue featuring eight articles on “The Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection of Japanese Painting and Calligraphy”. The lectures were given by John T. Carpenter, Tim T. Zhang, Rei Nakamura, Paul Berry, Monika Bincsik, Yoshitaka Yamamoto, Tamaki Maeda and Michiyo Morioka. Closing remarks were made by Cheney Cowles, who expressed his delight with the beautiful exhibition and thanked Dr Carpenter and his colleagues for their superb curatorial work.

Paul Bromberg and I would also like to thank Bonhams New York, especially Dessa Goddard and Asaph Hyman, for hosting the book launch and signing of Later Chinese Bronzes for the Scholar’s Studio: The Bromberg Collection. The event was very well attended and a great success. Champagne was flowing and it was very enjoyable meeting many curators, collectors and friends. The feedback about the book, which I am proud to say is the first published by Arts of Asia, has been extremely positive. At the upcoming International Antiques Fair, running from May 3rd to 7th, 2025, Paul will give a talk on “Collecting Later Chinese Bronzes for the Scholar’s Studio” on Sunday May 4th from 3 pm to 4 pm in Hall 3FG of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. Arts of Asia will be exhibiting at Booth M4, and we look forward to welcoming our international readers and friends to the fair, which brings together dealers from Asia, Europe and America, presenting thousands of years of Chinese artistic treasures, as well as antique artworks from other Asian and Western countries.

During Asia Week New York, I was also very pleased to meet Dr Pengliang Lu, Brooke Russell Astor Curator of Chinese Art in the Department of Asian Art at The Met. He wrote the article in the Arts of Asia Spring 2025 issue on the exhibition, “Recasting the Past: The Art of Chinese Bronzes, 1100–1900”, that is on view at The Met until September 28th, 2025. Dr Lu was very generous with his time, giving Paul and me a fascinating tour of this landmark exhibition. We were extremely impressed not only with the exemplary bronzes, drawn from global collections including eight museums in China, but also with the overall layout, lighting and caption design.

“Recasting the Past” illuminates a largely overlooked category of art—the bronzes produced in China from the 12th to the 19th century. Dr Lu noted that ritual vessels, ceremonial bells, incense burners and vases from this period were often regarded by modern collectors as mere imitations of the ancient bronzes that are masterpieces of early Chinese civilisation. However, recent archaeological excavations in China have led to the rediscovery of datable bronzes in museum collections across the world, and a scholarly focus on archaism and antiquarianism in the arts has provided a far richer understanding of the artistic evolution of Chinese bronzes. I would like to congratulate Dr Lu on putting together this outstanding show and his ground-breaking scholarship. The exhibition imparts a fundamentally new appreciation of these “later” bronzes as creative adaptations of archaistic forms, but with their own aesthetic merits and distinct functions.

The exhibition features more than 200 works drawn from twenty-two public and private collections in East Asia, Europe and the United States, many of which have never before been published. There are far too many outstanding pieces in the show to mention here, but my absolute favourite must be the magnificent Mahamayuri on Peacock, Ming dynasty, Xuande mark and period, on loan from Ethnologisches Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It is simply a masterpiece! The exhibition will next travel to Shanghai where it is scheduled to open on November 11th this year.

Let me take this opportunity to wish readers an enjoyable and relaxing summer.

PRINTEMPS ASIATIQUE PARIS 2025

Leading art and antiques galleries, auction houses and cultural institutions will come together to showcase the richness of Asian art and the dynamism of the French market at the 8th edition of Printemps Asiatique Paris from June 5th–14th, 2025.

Prestigious museums and institutions—Musée du Louvre, Guimet–Musée national des arts asiatiques, Musée du quai Branly–Jacques Chirac, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Musée des arts asiatiques in Nice and Fondation Baur—are holding important exhibitions to coincide with Asia Week Paris.

Nineteen international galleries will be exhibiting at the Pagoda Paris, fifteen participants will be exhibiting at galleries in Paris and four participants will be at galleries a broad. Twelve auction houses and three Asian art appraisers are also supporting this exciting event. Below is a selection of highlights from some of the galleries.

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